Shrewd moves - in the sales ring - Adrian Gonzalez -high-end bloodstock at public auction - strategies for buying and selling at the yearling sales
/![Buying and selling high-end bloodstock at public auction takes preparation, serious due diligence, lots of passion and a dose of luck.Article by Annie LambertBloodstock agents all have a formula, a routine, pedigree preferences and conformation predilections, which must be weighed against current market conditions and trends as they approach every sale.Whether you are purchasing horses for resale, to race or breeding stock, buying (or selling) Thoroughbreds is an intense business. Choosing the right weanling or yearling to pinhook is every bit as precarious as picking the right 2-year-old to run.Adrian Gonzalez, founder of Checkmate Thoroughbreds, is no exception. The 41-year-old horseman was not born into a family with deep equine ties or historic roots. He does, however, have a family story that reads something like a cold war novel.Gonzalez’s grandfather, Roberto, was a Cuban orphan raised in the government system and became an Olympic-caliber gymnast. Roberto was a member of the Cuban National Olympic Gymnastics Team during the Pan American Games in Guatemala City, Guatemala. During the competition he met his future wife (a student at the university where the games were held), defected from Cuba and started a family. When Gonzalez’s father Erick was 12, the family immigrated to the United States.Adrian grew up around backyard horses in a small northern California town. While obtaining a degree in animal science at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, he paid his bills by breaking yearlings at Cardiff Stud. Team roping and cowboying on a 23,000-acre cattle ranch may not have prepared the young Gonzalez for his first foyer into Thoroughbred racing.“The first morning I walked into the tack room and there are only flat saddle—English tack,” he recalled with a chuckle, shaking his head. “I honestly didn’t even know how to tack them up, but the guys showed me.”Cardiff was sold to game show host Alex Trebek, who changed the name to Creston Farms and focused solely on breeding. Gonzalez hung up his tack and became a stallion groom and later stallion manager. His wealth of experience in the industry continued to grow.“When the breeding season ended I switched gears and focused on the development and growth of weanlings and yearlings,” Gonzalez explained. “I became enchanted by the Thoroughbred business and put all my focus into figuring out how I could do this for a living.”Pedigrees Are PersonalGonzalez did figure out how to build the Thoroughbred industry into a career. When Creston Farms was sold again and became the short-lived Windfall Farms, he seized on the demise of Windfall, leased a portion of that farm and started his own bloodstock business. Checkmate Thoroughbreds came to light in 2005. In 2013, Checkmate moved to its current 66-acres in nearby Parkfield.During those early years Gonzalez dove into operating a training facility, breaking yearlings, foaling mares and offering sales consignments. When he and his wife Erin (who has an agricultural business degree) analyzed their large cash flow, they found the actual profit margin boiled down to a couple well-sold sale horses.“It happened that we were profiting on one or two horses that we came up with ourselves,” said Gonzalez with a laugh. “We could have had just those few horses instead of the hundreds of others. Slowly we phased down on the breaking and training to focus on the sales—the pinhooking side of it.”Personal preferences in bloodlines as well as following industry trends are not unique. Prior to readily available online statistics, Gonzalez researched and put together spreadsheets to assist his pinhooking selections. Choosing horses for resale is easier these days, but it is easier for everyone.“When the catalog comes out, I do a lot of research,” Gonzalez explained. “Blood-Horse puts out a valuable tool called The Auction Edge. It shows the history for every horse in the family, what they sold for, which are not on the regular auction page. This past November we bought an inexpensive weanling by Overanalyze for $2,500.“There wasn’t much black type on the catalog page, but with a little research in Auction Edge you could see that there was an Uncle Mo 2-year-old half-sibling that had just sold at [Ocala Breeder’s Sale] March for $525,000. Knowing that there was the potential for a big pedigree update will help increase the value of your horse without you having to actually do anything to the horse.“Coincidentally, a few months after we bought that baby the Uncle Mo filly won her first two starts in Japan by a combined 20-length margin. After that the phone was ringing off the hook, and we sold it privately for a whole lot of money.”Gonzalez pointed out that is one reason he spends more time digging through the sales results of the families than looking at the black type on the catalog pages. The pre-sale diligence can also expose a negative. For example, you may find a half-sibling to a bunch of horses by top sires that all sold “terribly cheap.” That tells you the mare produces terrible sales horses.“Since I’m not doing this to find a race horse,” the agent reminded, “those sales numbers are super important for me to have.”The Conformation CoupOnce at the sale, Gonzalez follows his prospect list to search for bargains. He doesn’t want to pay retail for a pinhook.“I want to find something with all the parts, but not necessarily put together yet,” he said. “I want to see good length of bone, meaning the horse is going to grow to have substantial size. I’m not too concerned with how heavily muscled a weanling is at this point; I’ve made the mistake of buying heavy muscled weanlings and get them home to realize they were slowing down in their growth height, and that’s why they were filling in.”Because Gonzalez shoes and trims his own horses, he usually begins appraising an individual’s conformation at their feet, especially on a weanling. (Shoeing photo)“If a weanling doesn’t have a very good walk, it’s not carrying itself well, or is stiff behind, generally that’s starting at the feet,” he pointed out. “I try to evaluate the growth stage they’re in. I’m not trying to find the perfect horse; I’m trying to find something I can improve.”For example, Gonzalez prefers a weanling that toes out some over one that stands perfectly correct, citing that as those colts mature and their chests widen, they will be inclined to toe in.“If you were to see the front end of some weanlings the day I buy them, you’d probably deem those horses a little too crooked,” he said. “If they grow the way we hope they do, they will be just right when we go to sell them as yearlings. We’ll help that along with how we trim those feet and how we feed the horse.”Gonzalez puts an emphasis on the gaskin when scrutinizing the hind leg, calling it the “speed and power muscle.” He doesn’t agree that speed comes from the hip and jokes about there being a “lot of big hips out there, but not a lot of talent.”“If you have a big hip and just kind of a scrawny leg coming down below that, it’s just fool’s gold,” he opined. “You’re going to get a heavy muscled horse with no speed and no power. So the gaskin and the forearm are muscle types that develop really early, and I can identify that the horse is going to have some speed.”The shoulder should be at a 45-degree angle, which should have a matching angle at the pastern. Gonzalez may attribute a “funky” pastern angle to feet that are not properly trimmed or the stage of growth.“Looking at a long, sloping 45-degree shoulder angle, I’m hoping I can tell how this horse is going to move just by seeing it stand there,” said Gonzalez. “If all the parts are balanced and at the correct angle we’re looking for, then when they walk off, they should have that stride we’re looking for. Generally you can see it there in a picture before you need to see it in motion, which is our reassurance.”“I don’t have the budget to buy the perfect horse—the show stopper—at the sale.” “I want to resell the perfect horse,” Gonzalez concluded.Walk the WalkWeanlings and yearlings get walked and viewed at sales because it is the only test that may predict their athleticism down the road. The walk is probably the single most critiqued evaluation a horse goes through at a sale.“That’s because we can’t just turn them loose and watch them run. The best we can do is have them walk up and back 50 feet and attempt to determine how this horse can run at a mile and a quarter,” quipped Gonzalez.In addition to overall athleticism, buyers are looking for a walk to show stride efficiency and stride length. In theory, a longer stride length at a walk should equal a longer stride at full speed.Gonzalez noted that he sold his Eurociser when he observed his horses shortened their stride to back off the gates. They also kept their heads elevated, which hollowed out their backs and disengaged their hindquarters, also shortening the stride.“Pretty much we hand walk our horses,” Gonzalez explained. “It is incredibly labor intensive because we are walking each horse two miles a day. But they are learning so much about manners—learning to respect a handler, and they go on to show so much better at the sale.”Horses that engage their hindquarters, lengthening their stride, exhibit their drive power behind with a larger overstride. The overstride being the hind foot reaching and planting beyond the hoof print left by the front foot.“With a short walking horse, the hind foot will step in the same spot its front foot just came out of or less,” said Gonzalez. “A big walking horse will overstride a foot or 18 inches. At the run, that translates into power from the back end.”An interesting perception by Gonzalez on watching 2-year-olds in training is that buyers seem to value the faster works over the longer walk.“These fast horses at the training sales...if they are fast and have a big stride, great,” he observed. “They should bring a lot of money, but there are so many that are fast at an eighth of a mile and still very short strided. I think people overlook the walk at the 2-year-old sales because they are focused on the flashy breeze times.”Buy, Sell, PassGonzalez likes to find a horse that has all the parts in all the right places but doesn’t have a great walk. Often, he feels, these individuals can be improved by the time he sells them.“You can find horses that don’t have a good walk, but you can help develop their muscles and develop their behavior to have a good walk. That’s part of our pinhooking strategy.”There are some conformation issues, however, that he cannot gamble on. Clubfeet are most likely a pass. Small horses don’t get much attention from Gonzalez either. The smaller horses can be purchased for a discount but are usually discounted when resold as well.Those that are too upright, too straight in the pasterns and even through the knees, and those over in the knees are also avoided by Gonzalez. Some of his best pinhooks were individuals that were “beat up” price wise for being too long and too low in the pasterns.“That type of horse can have a really, really big walk on them,” he noted. “I’ve seen horses whose pasterns are deemed low that eventually grow up into them and appear normal. The ones that are really upright and straight just get worse. I’ve been stung before thinking they’ll improve, but they’ve always gotten worse.”Like every other agent, Gonzalez has his personal preferences on pedigrees and conformation, but he always works on keeping an open mind toward expanding his knowledge.“I don’t try to convince myself that I can’t afford a certain family,” he explained. “I’ll still look at something by the top sire; I also don’t want to rule out something that would be by what some consider a cold sire.”Gonzalez is also open-minded about the vetting process. He is not looking for horses that will not pass the veterinary exam, but he does look for those that might suffer a significant discount on their sale price due to issues in their vet reports.“The vetting is hard,” he conceded. “I guess if I like the horse, I buy it. I don’t let the vets talk me out of a horse anymore. I used to have my Top-10 list of horses, I’d vet them and none would pass. Then I’d go back through my list and I’d buy what would be my eleventh favorite horse, or the one who passed the vet exam.“Looking back, the majority of those 10 I liked went on to be successful, and I ended up with a perfectly clean horse with no talent. I would have done better buying something with a little vet issue that was just a better horse. That’s what has worked for us.”According to Gonzalez, it isn’t just finding the right horse to pinhook; it is also having the foresight to know where the best resale market is to maximize the profit. “We have to evaluate the market in advance,” he said. “I’ll sometimes like a horse, but it just doesn’t fit any sale I could take it to. It’s going to cost a little too much for X sale, and it’s not quite enough horse for Y sale. It wasn’t that we didn’t like the horse; it just didn’t fit our markets.”Checkmate Thoroughbreds has had many well-sold horses. For example, the first year they decided to pinhook weanlings, the three they flipped were wise choices worth the effort.“We bought three at Keeneland November,” Gonzalez confirmed. “We spent $26,500 and sold them for $145,000 and got a sale topper out of it. Those were the very first weanlings we did, so it was very reassuring that we could do this.”The best horse sold by Checkmate to date was not the best pinhooking story for Gonzalez. Spiced Perfection (2015 B M, Smiling Tiger x Perfect Feat, by Pleasantly Perfect) was purchased as a $6,500 yearling at the Barrett’s October sale. She did not reach her reserve of $50,000 at the Del Mar training sale the following summer. She was sold privately the night of the sale. Spiced Perfection did become a multiple-graded stakes winner of $1,224,705 and was twice crowned California Horse of the Year.“We have to sell runners, and people need to hear the story that they can get a Gr1 winner for $50,000,” concluded the agent. “Agents have different formulas. We all like a little bit different horse, and that’s why we can all play this game.”“We all get lucky now and then,” he added with a grin. Side Bar 1 of 1The COVID EffectPhoto #Image0,(HELMET/MASK) (Annie Lambert)The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how the world operates; the business of equine auctions is one of many industries enduring those changes to survive.Adrian Gonzalez, proprietor of Checkmate Thoroughbreds in Central California, foresees results from the upcoming 2020-2021 sales as undetermined—“a moving target.” Gonzalez, 41, frequents many auctions across the United States and deems his challenges slightly different for his roles as a buyer or seller.“As a buyer, I need to see the horses with my own eyes,” Gonzalez stated. “If the sales have restrictions where you can’t go see these horses, or they make it limited as to how you can inspect the horses, it’s going to be really hard for me to participate. So much of what I do is visual; I have to see it, and even the photos or videos don’t cut it.”The sales companies have not yet provided consignors or purchasers with a defined protocol as to how city, county and state regulations could/will dictate their restrictions. If other buyers need Gonzalez’s eyes on examinations of horses, it may cut into gross sales amounts through limited participation.At the other end of the spectrum, Gonzalez feels the sales companies have done a tremendous job of opening up the channels for buyers to purchase through online bidding. As a seller, he imagines, there could be increased action from buyers who are not able to physically attend the sale.“I’m hopeful now—as a seller—that people not having to be there in person to bid could provide more [bidding] action,” opined Gonzalez. “You don’t know how many times someone will come by my sale barn and ask to see a horse that had already sold. They had missed the sale because they were eating lunch or something. Now, if they could sit at the lunch table with their phone on the sale feed and just push ‘bid,’ it could help us bring in more money.”“I’m just not sure on the buying end,” he reiterated, “if people can’t travel to the sale, we don’t know how much that’s going to hurt.” CAPTIONS:#3001 (GONZALEZ FAMILY) Courtesy Checkmate Thoroughbreds>Adrian Gonzalez and his wife, Erin, operate their 66-acre Checkmate Thoroughbreds in Parkfield, Calif.#6285 (SPICED PERFECTION) Courtesy Checkmate Thoroughbreds>Spiced Perfection was smaller “in a plain brown wrapper” when she did not reach her reserve as a 2-year-old; the multiple-graded stakes winner ultimately earned $1,224,705.#3726 (ADRIAN SHOEING) Courtesy Checkmate Thoroughbreds>Gonzalez has honed his farrier skills to help pinhook prospects grow correctly and become improved individuals before reselling.#3072 (TOES OUT) Courtesy Checkmate Thoroughbreds > Foals that toe out will often self-correct through the legs as the narrow chests widen; proper trimming also helps Mother Nature.#8723 (GOOD CONFORMATION) Courtesy Checkmate Thoroughbreds>This filly possesses overall good conformation, according to Gonzalez’s experienced eye.#4271 (PRE SALE WALKING) Courtesy Checkmate Thoroughbreds>Checkmate sale preparations include two miles of hand walking daily, according to Gonzalez. Horses show better at the sale with the extra handling prior.#3003 (VET EXAM FAIL) Courtesy Checkmate Thoroughbreds>This short yearling failed a veterinary exam causing Gonzalez to pass on her. She was a good one that got away. “I don’t let vets talk me out of a horse anymore,” he reflected.#4622 (MALIBU MOON YEARLING) L & BARRETT’S HIP 51 R(MALIBU MOON 2YO GALLOP) Courtesy Checkmate Thoroughbreds>This pretty Malibu Moon filly was an $85,000 yearling purchased at Fasig-Tipton July and parlayed into a $240,000 resale at the Del Mar Select training sale.#OVERSTRIDE> WE WERE NOT ABLE TO GET AN IMAGE OR DRAWING OF AN OVERSTRIDE…POSSIBLY ART DEPARTMENT COULD DO???A strong sales walk lends insight into a prospect’s future prowess as a racehorse and is the single most critiqued evaluation of sale horses.#2561 & 2459 L to R (SMILING TIGER FILLY) Courtesy Checkmate Thoroughbreds>This well-balanced Smiling Tiger filly was well flipped by Checkmate, which purchased her at the CTBA January 2019 sale for $10,000. She resold for $72,000 during Fasig-Tipton September just eight months later. POSSIBLE PULL QUOTES:“I became enchanted by the Thoroughbred business and put all my focus into figuring out how I could do this for a living.”“If you have a big hip and just kind of a scrawny leg coming down below that, it’s just fool’s gold.”“So the gaskin and the forearm are muscle types that develop really early, and I can identify that the horse is going to have some speed.”“I don’t try to convince myself that I can’t afford a certain family.”“We all like a little bit different horse, and that’s why we can all play this game.”](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/517636f8e4b0cb4f8c8697ba/1596711311821-D9WXF9G3H47326PEE0OD/IMG_6285.JPG)
By Annie Lambert
Bloodstock agents all have a formula, a routine, pedigree preferences and conformation predilections, which must be weighed against current market conditions and trends as they approach every sale.
Whether you are purchasing horses for resale, to race or breeding stock, buying (or selling) Thoroughbreds is an intense business. Choosing the right weanling or yearling to pinhook is every bit as precarious as picking the right 2-year-old to run.
Adrian Gonzalez, founder of Checkmate Thoroughbreds, is no exception. The 41-year-old horseman was not born into a family with deep equine ties or historic roots. He does, however, have a family story that reads something like a cold war novel.
Gonzalez’s grandfather, Roberto, was a Cuban orphan raised in the government system and became an Olympic-caliber gymnast. Roberto was a member of the Cuban National Olympic Gymnastics Team during the Pan American Games in Guatemala City, Guatemala. During the competition he met his future wife (a student at the university where the games were held), defected from Cuba and started a family. When Gonzalez’s father Erick was 12, the family immigrated to the United States.
Adrian grew up around backyard horses in a small northern California town. While obtaining a degree in animal science at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, he paid his bills by breaking yearlings at Cardiff Stud. Team roping and cowboying on a 23,000-acre cattle ranch may not have prepared the young Gonzalez for his first foyer into Thoroughbred racing.
Checkmate sale preparations include two miles of hand walking daily, according to Gonzalez. Horses show better at the sale with the extra handling prior.
“The first morning I walked into the tack room and there are only flat saddle—English tack,” he recalled with a chuckle, shaking his head. “I honestly didn’t even know how to tack them up, but the guys showed me.”
Cardiff was sold to game show host Alex Trebek, who changed the name to Creston Farms and focused solely on breeding. Gonzalez hung up his tack and became a stallion groom and later stallion manager. His wealth of experience in the industry continued to grow.
“When the breeding season ended I switched gears and focused on the development and growth of weanlings and yearlings,” Gonzalez explained. “I became enchanted by the Thoroughbred business and put all my focus into figuring out how I could do this for a living.”
Pedigrees Are Personal
Gonzalez did figure out how to build the Thoroughbred industry into a career. When Creston Farms was sold again and became the short-lived Windfall Farms, he seized on the demise of Windfall, leased a portion of that farm and started his own bloodstock business. Checkmate Thoroughbreds came to light in 2005. In 2013, Checkmate moved to its current 66-acres in nearby Parkfield.
This pretty Malibu Moon filly was an $85,000 yearling purchased at Fasig-Tipton July and parlayed into a $240,000 resale at the Del Mar Select training sale (above).
During those early years Gonzalez dove into operating a training facility, breaking yearlings, foaling mares and offering sales consignments. When he and his wife Erin (who has an agricultural business degree) analyzed their large cash flow, they found the actual profit margin boiled down to a couple well-sold sale horses.
“It happened that we were profiting on one or two horses that we came up with ourselves,” said Gonzalez with a laugh. “We could have had just those few horses instead of the hundreds of others. Slowly we phased down on the breaking and training to focus on the sales—the pinhooking side of it.”
Personal preferences in bloodlines as well as following industry trends are not unique. Prior to readily available online statistics, Gonzalez researched and put together spreadsheets to assist his pinhooking selections. Choosing horses for resale is easier these days, but it is easier for everyone.
“When the catalog comes out, I do a lot of research,” Gonzalez explained. “Blood-Horse puts out a valuable tool called The Auction Edge. It shows the history for every horse in the family, what they sold for, which are not on the regular auction page. This past November we bought an inexpensive weanling by Overanalyze for $2,500.
“There wasn’t much black type on the catalog page, but with a little research in Auction Edge you could see that there was an Uncle Mo 2-year-old half-sibling that had just sold at [Ocala Breeder’s Sale] March for $525,000. Knowing that there was the potential for a big pedigree update will help increase the value of your horse without you having to actually do anything to the horse.
“Coincidentally, a few months after we bought that baby the Uncle Mo filly won her first two starts in Japan by a combined 20-length margin. After that the phone was ringing off the hook, and we sold it privately for a whole lot of money.”
Gonzalez pointed out that is one reason he spends more time digging through the sales results of the families than looking at the black type on the catalog pages. The pre-sale diligence can also expose a negative. …
